He has spent 100 hours meticulously painting the engraved letters that tell the tale of the worst naval disaster in U.S. history.

"You get in touch with the story," said Miller, 49, as he looked up at the USS Indianapolis National Memorial. "It gets me in touch with an honor before my time."

With this year marking the 65th anniversary of the sinking of the USS Indianapolis, Miller and about a dozen other volunteers have undertaken an effort to preserve the memorial -- the first since the two-tone granite monument's installation along the Downtown Canal Walk in 1995.

As the smooth stone memorial started showing signs of wear and weather, the volunteers feared the Indianapolis' famous story would begin to fade, too.

"We're carrying on the memory," Miller said.

The Indianapolis, a World War II armored cruiser that shuttled one of the atomic bombs, was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine between Guam and the Philippines on July 30, 1945.

It was "just fate" that a teenager from Indy's Eastside sailed out on the famous ship named after his hometown. He ended up in one of the most horrifying tales of modern warfare.
Danese Kenon/The Star

In a communications nightmare -- that later would be exposed as a scandal -- the rescue was delayed for five days.

Of 1,196 servicemen aboard the Indianapolis, only 317 survived. Some went down with the ship. Some drowned as they waited for help to arrive. Others were eaten by sharks.

Two who didn't make it home were Miller's uncles, brothers who lied about being siblings to stay together on the ship. Their names are etched into the dark granite among the neat, long rows that also contain the names of their fellow crew members.

Washing and waxing that stone is just one of the jobs that the cleanup crew wanted to finish before their big deadline: the reunion this weekend of the approximately 50 remaining survivors.

When the volunteers proposed a cleanup plan to the Indiana War Memorials Commission last year, they had a laundry list of tasks.

Remove the mildew, mold and moss that crept along the structure. Repair chips in the cement base. Treat the splotches of water discoloration. Clean out leaves and rub off the rust stain in the fountain. Weed, water and mow the lawn.

Every year, the survivors come from their corners of the country to honor those lost and remember the history of the Indianapolis.

"You look up and realize what those men went through," said volunteer Barry Fairfax, 65, Carmel. "What we're doing is nothing compared to them. Absolutely nothing."

Fairfax's voice grows low and slow. It gives him pause, this labor of love.

As a fighter pilot in the Vietnam War, "I didn't have to sleep in a foxhole," Fairfax said. "I didn't have to worry about someone coming around the corner and shooting me.

"It's perhaps a way of paying back."

The Indianapolis, the story on the monument reads, was used as Franklin D. Roosevelt's personal carrier before it went into battle for World War II. In the battle for Okinawa, the ship was hit by a kamikaze pilot. And the Indianapolis became best known for its central role in the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima.

But the Indianapolis' legacy would be further defined by the tragedy of its loss.

On the south side of the memorial, the tale of her sinking unravels. After delivering the bomb, the Indianapolis was ordered to the Philippines.

Before the ship could get there, it was spotted by a Japanese submarine. The sub fired upon the Indianapolis, and two torpedoes hit it.

"It bounced the ship up and down about three times," recalled Jim O'Donnell, the only Indianapolis native to survive the ship's sinking. "And it just kept going forward."

The Indianapolis sank in 12 minutes. About 900 men made it into the water, and they would float there for nearly five days -- those who lived through it.

"There was nothing you could do," O'Donnell said.

The sailors and Marines fought exposure, starvation, dehydration and the pain of their wounds. Then came the sharks.

"There were sharks all around you all the time," O'Donnell said. "You had to stay in a group. If you were out there by yourself, a shark would've had you."

After the ship's loss, its sinking was shrouded in scandal.

The Indianapolis was said to have not sent a distress signal, though the sailors radioed several of them. The SOS messages were disregarded for various reasons, including suspicion of an enemy trap.

Shortly after the end of the war, the ship's captain, Charles B. McVay III, was court-martialed and convicted of endangering his men by not taking evasive actions. He committed suicide with his Navy-issued revolver in 1968.

These days, it's easier to read that tale carved into the monument. A new layer of black paint details each letter.

It became the pet project for Ray Miller, a "walk-on" with the group. Passing by the volunteer team from the Indianapolis Radio League, he asked to paint one letter. But then he kept coming back.

It's honorable work, Miller said, and he knows honor. Miller, an Army man, fought in three tours in Iraq and came home wounded.

His body is rejecting the shrapnel fragments still embedded in his back from an IED explosion, which has caused him to develop leukemia.

When he couldn't work during chemotherapy treatments, Miller spent his days painting the memorial. Line by line, he filled in nearly every letter on the south panels and many of them on the north ones.

Because of the efforts of Miller and others, the monument looks better. The ground is no longer littered with cigarette butts and empty bottles. The grass is no longer a crispy brownish-yellow color. The polished granite shines in the sun and glows under the floor lights at night.

A single change

With the approval of the commission, the volunteers made a single change to the monument, painting the once-gray official Marine seals and unofficial Navy emblems. They carefully matched the paint colors according to standards or got as close as they could, inventing a custom light brown for the Navy emblem that they like to call "CA-35" -- the identification number of the Indianapolis.

"This is about the survivors," Fairfax said. "This is not about us."

On Sunday, the cleanup crew will attend the remembrance ceremony, but they will stand quietly somewhere in the background -- behind the manicured lawn and gleaming memorial.

Fast facts

• The USS Indianapolis Memorial was dedicated on Aug. 2, 1995.

• The memorial was designed by architect Joseph Fischer to mimic the structure of the ship. The dark granite monolith on the north end of the plaza represents the bow, and the raised, curved overlook behind the monument is meant to be the ship's bridge.

• The 10 stars cut into the base of the monument stand for the 10 battle stars awarded to the Indianapolis.